Kalbert Young, UH vice president for budget and finance and chief financial officer, shares his analysis of the 2017 legislative session.

The 2017 legislative session adjourned on May 4, passing hundreds of bills on to the governor for final consideration, many of which impacted the University of Hawaiʻi either directly or indirectly.

The signature initiative for the University of Hawaiʻi in 2017 was to secure funding for Hawaiʻi’s Promise Program—a “last dollar” scholarship program to provide for the unmet needs of qualified University of Hawaiʻi Community College resident students. Working with the governor and the legislature, the program was appropriated $1,829,000 for each year of the fiscal biennium 2018 and 2019. With the governor’s approval of the statewide budget, the university will undertake the process to establish rules and guidelines as to how the program will distribute and qualify applicants.

The university had other funding requests for operations, programs and initiatives at the 2017 legislature. At the end of the legislative session, many of these were not funded, but there were some areas that did receive funding support and, others that were funded which the university did not initiate or originally request. The legislature was challenged to meet statewide funding requests of departments because there were many competing factors impacting the state’s budget. These included funding for collective bargaining cost items for all 14 bargaining units, general excise tax allocations to fund Oʻahu’s rail project and many other high profile issues.

The biennium budget bill (HB 100), along with the many other bills that passed the legislature, now moves to the governor for his consideration. The table below compares the UH items in the operating budget, as requested by the Board of Regents with those that were ultimately included in the final conference draft of the budget bill that is awaiting the governor’s approval.

Campus

Description

UH Request

Conference Draft

UHMānoa

UHCancer Center support

4 positions and $5,000,000

None

UHSystem

Title IX

Total request was $1,850,000

None

UHMānoa

Title IX

$250,000

UHHilo

Title IX

2 positions and $150,000

UHWest Oʻahu

Title IX

1 position and $70,000

UHCommunity Colleges

Title IX

4 positions and $820,000

UHCommunity Colleges

Hawaiʻi Promise Program

$2,500,000

$1,829,000

UHSystem

Positions for capital improvement projects

$400,000

$400,000

UHMānoa

Concussion awareness

None

$350,000

UHMānoa

Heʻeia Reserve

None

2.64 positions and $240,800

UHSystem

Legal support

None

2 positions and $375,000

UHSystem

Transfer in Office of Aerospace from DBEDT

None

1 position and $87,996

UHSystem

Hawaiʻi Graduation Initiative

12 positions and $9,850,000

None

UHSystem

Hawaiʻi Research and Innovation Initiative

5 positions and $3,500,000

None

UHSystem

Graduate student salary support

$2,850,000

None

UHSystem

High Performance Mission Driven System

7 positions and $2,800,000

None

In general, I believe the university fared pretty well in legislative attention in the budget. Granted, much of the UH’s original request was not funded, but the areas that were funded give the university some support to continue its movement of improvements.

Also included in the budget was funding for the University of Hawaiʻi System to address capital improvement projects and deferred maintenance, which is a major concern of UH. The state budget appropriated a total of $159.8 million in general obligation bonds for the following projects:

Campus

Project

Amount

UHMānoa

Lyon Arboretum, repair and repave parking lot

$600,000

UHHilo

Hale Alahonua, air conditioning improvements

$3,000,000

UHWest Oʻahu

Renovation of the maintenance building

$2,500,000

UHWest Oʻahu

Repair and renovation of the library

$50,000

HonoluluCC

Reroof automotive technology and diesel mechanics facility

$450,000

HawaiʻiCC

Trades and Apprenticeship Program and physics lab, various improvements

Improvements for Kaʻaʻike and Paʻina HVAC controls and distribution systems

$1,100,000

UHMaui College

Library improvements and removal of hazardous materials

$440,000

UHCommunity Colleges

Minor CIP

$10,000,000

UHCommunity Colleges

Capital renewal and deferred maintenance

$10,000,000

UHCommunity Colleges

Product development center

$9,000,000

UHSystem

Renew, improve and modernize

$83,250,000

UHSystem

CTAHR, site and infrastructure improvements at research stations statewide

$6,000,000

UHSystem

Proof of concept planning and design

$250,000

UHSystem

Snyder Hall replacement

$5,000,000

UHSystem

Relocation of communications and the Academy of Creative Media into a shared facility on the Mānoa campus

$3,000,000

UHSystem

Hyperbaric Treatment Center at Kuakini Hospital

$1,500,000

Total

$159,770,000

UH is extremely thankful and appreciative to the legislature for the support they provided for these capital needs across the UH System. A lot of work still needs to be done and additional funding will still need to be appropriated in order to reduce UH’s deferred maintenance backlog. But, like the operating budget appropriations, the level of capital funding is enough that UH could make some level of progress on modernizing some of its campuses’ facilities.

The governor has until July 11, 2017 to either sign, veto, or allow bills to become law without his signature.